Canson Montval Watercolor Blocks

Canson Montval is a fine quality, acid-free, natural white, mildew resistant watercolor paper. It is offered in blocks that are bound on all four sides, which prevents curling of the sheet and eliminates the need to tape it down to another surface. When completed, your art can be removed with ease from the block with a standard razor blade. The block is convenient for both studio and field use.

This water color block came apart the first time I used it. The wax or adhesive that holds it together came right apart, which defeats the purpose of the block. I ended up having to re stretch all my paper and was not happy about that. I am taking a watercolor class at my university, a couple of my other classmates bought the same watercolor block and the same thing happened to them, the block came apart.

I purchased this watercolor block when the brand I normally use was out of stock. I had high hopes for this paper, as I've enjoyed working with Canson's drawing papers.

The edges of the block, particularly when doing a heavy wash with lots of water, tend to peel up, making it warp. As somebody who works wet-on-wet, this was a problem. On the rare occasions this did not happen, the paper still buckled and created a large "bubble" in the middle of the page.

The water and paint tend to sit on top of the paper and tends to lose its vibrancy as it dries. There is also little tooth to the paper. It is very smooth and the paper tends to break down, creating little "pills" when I put on more than two or three layers, or try to lift paint from the surface.

This block is good for using water soluble crayons, as the smoother texture doesn't eat up the crayons as more textured paper does. The paper also takes acryic well. I could also see this paper working better for a more controlled painting style that doesn't involve soaking the page, or for mixed media.

The price of this product compared to similar, competitive alternatives is:

Average

Bottom LineNo, I would not recommend this to a friend

Merchant response: Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Whenever you are less than satisfied with a product, please know that you can give us a call and we will help replace or exchange your product for another one that might better meet your project needs. A member of our Customer Care team will contact you to see if we can help you with a return or exchange.

I bought this block style paper because I wanted to try a paper that I didn't have to "stretch". The quality of this block paper, thickness, whiteness, etc. is great, but once I started painting with watercolor, some really strange things started to happen. First, the water did not absorb evenly into the paper, even though I had carefully made sure I put the colors down evenly. This resulted in watermarks because it wouldn't absorb evenly like most watercolor papers. The next thing I found discouraging is that you cannot apply a glaze over each layer. From my observations, it's because it does not have a real "tooth" like Strathmore, Arches, and other excellent name brand papers! I thought for a moment that maybe I made a mistake and bought hot press paper, but it was indeed, cold press. So the paint literally sits on top the paper, and will move if you touch it! This gets really frustrating with underpainting, too, as the colors just don't blend on this paper. You can't smooth out hard edges without all the paint coming up and/or making a watermark! I used the same paints the night before on Arches paper, and everything worked great, so I know it's not the paints. That's when I realized that I had used this block last year, and my painting turned out awful because of this paper, but I thought maybe I wasn't doing something right. That picture was ruined, too, and I had forgotten about it. I have now marked the front of this block as "DO NOT USE FOR WATERCOLOR!"

On the good side, as I said, it IS good quality paper. But I can see that this will now be used ONLY for pen & ink, marker, or pastels. I don't know if I got a bad block, or if this is how this paper works. I will stick with other name brands from now on. I know they are reliable and I've never had a problem like I did with this Canson block.

The price of this product compared to similar, competitive alternatives is:

A fantastic deal

Bottom LineNo, I would not recommend this to a friend

Merchant response: We are sorry to hear you did not have a satisfying experience with this product. Please know that if you are not completely satisfied with the quality of the merchandise you receive, you are entitled to a full replacement or refund. We ask that you contact our Customer Care Center at 800-723-2787 within 30 days so that the exchange, refund, or credit transaction can be arranged to your satisfaction.

I use these watercolor blocks for demonstrations in watercolor classes & recommend them to students as an inexpensive investment that solves several problems for the class [cost & stretch primarily]. Not so great - It provides a cold press paper which is adequate, however I prefer a hot pressed paper for my own work, which is not available in this brand.

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